FOREWORD: Knowledge Base seems to be offline. The 'Features' page won't elucidate most of my questions. Searching the forum proved somewhat difficult because I'm unfamiliar with the different versions of AGS.
A BRIEF INTRODUCTION: Programming is the least interesting of all activities I've ever got myself into, but over the years (I'll be 30 in two months and one day, sadly) I learned some C, some Python, and a load of MEL script. My real interest, and I'll assume it's the same for most of you guys, lies in creating an adventure game the like of the good old Sierra's and LucasArts's point-n-click gems. It's something I've dreamed of in distant 1990, and the dream persists. You probably feel the same and come from a similar background, give or take a few years.
My background as an artist, both in 2D and 3D form, and what experience I've garnered over the years as an animator have given me the courage to make up a story, mull over ideas for puzzles, consider the wide range of options and what can be done with the medium itself. Regrettably, this is not my first try. A very, very long time ago, I tried to create my own little world on the screen, but I failed. Not for lack of time as I had plenty back then. I failed because I was imature and mostly because it was a LOT of hard work. And I quit the dream projet to play Parasite Eve (or Chrono Cross, I can't remember). AGS was in its infancy and from a professional point of view, so was I. My drawings and sketches were pretty neat, but otherwise unimpressive.
A few years later I'm back with the same old intent, AGS has grown into a behemoth of adventuring prowess, amateur games are a-plenty, and some people aimed for commercial sales and pulled it off. Not too shabby, Mr. Chris Jones. Maybe it's about time I do something with my dream, too. Now I'm a little bit wiser, I know better than to rush into things without planning, my artistic abilities are sharper, and I feel much more confident to see this through. What am I doing with AGS? Don't know yet, don't much care at this time. I'm a big fan of Poe and Lovecraft, am in perpetual love with Monkey Island and Quest for Glory (who isn't?), and throughout the years made up a lot of characters and situations in my mind that should prove useful if only as inspiration to come up with something new.
YET ANOTHER PREFACE: To make things easier and slightly more manageable, I divided my project in logical steps. This ridiculously long post is my attempt to cover one of these, and the thought occured to me that it might end up being useful to somebody else, i.e.: an updated/elaborated 'features' Q&A.
______________________________________________________________
Q1) By 'Standard Sierra' or 'Verb Coin' GUI, do you mean AGI/SCI and SCUMM GUIs are available out-of-the-box? If so, does AGS feature a command parser similar to SCI0 and early SCI1.0 games? Also, it is mentioned that a LucasArts-styled conversation system is available by default; is the same true for Sierra-styled conversations, with zoomed-in talking portraits and what-not?
Q2) AGS now is a WIN86x-based application, but its games & byproducts (I've seen platformers and simulators done with AGS which are nothing short of amazing) run on an engine that's been ported to Linux and OSX; how well and what features will not work with each ported engine? The WIN86x engine works on top of DirectX; Linux and OSX engines are running on software mode, then? Should we expect future support for a 64-bits architecture?
Q3) In the 'features' page it's mentioned a range of color palettes or no palette at all with support for 32-bits Alpha; out of curiosity, if I chose to emulate an enhanced graphics adapter (EGA) palette of 16 simultaneous colors out of 64, does AGS come with the appropriate 64 color spectre? If not, can I import a new palette?
Q4) Again in the 'features' page there's mention to proprietary file extensions such as the MP3 format and AVI. Shouldn't these be avoided? I don't mean to insult the Americans, but how come people haven't been sued for sharing or selling games that make use of these formats without paying royalties and such? Take this in good humour, please. Oh, the question itself is serious.
______________________________________________________________
Thank you for reading this! I'll be much obliged if you answer these questions.
Cheers.
A BRIEF INTRODUCTION: Programming is the least interesting of all activities I've ever got myself into, but over the years (I'll be 30 in two months and one day, sadly) I learned some C, some Python, and a load of MEL script. My real interest, and I'll assume it's the same for most of you guys, lies in creating an adventure game the like of the good old Sierra's and LucasArts's point-n-click gems. It's something I've dreamed of in distant 1990, and the dream persists. You probably feel the same and come from a similar background, give or take a few years.
My background as an artist, both in 2D and 3D form, and what experience I've garnered over the years as an animator have given me the courage to make up a story, mull over ideas for puzzles, consider the wide range of options and what can be done with the medium itself. Regrettably, this is not my first try. A very, very long time ago, I tried to create my own little world on the screen, but I failed. Not for lack of time as I had plenty back then. I failed because I was imature and mostly because it was a LOT of hard work. And I quit the dream projet to play Parasite Eve (or Chrono Cross, I can't remember). AGS was in its infancy and from a professional point of view, so was I. My drawings and sketches were pretty neat, but otherwise unimpressive.
A few years later I'm back with the same old intent, AGS has grown into a behemoth of adventuring prowess, amateur games are a-plenty, and some people aimed for commercial sales and pulled it off. Not too shabby, Mr. Chris Jones. Maybe it's about time I do something with my dream, too. Now I'm a little bit wiser, I know better than to rush into things without planning, my artistic abilities are sharper, and I feel much more confident to see this through. What am I doing with AGS? Don't know yet, don't much care at this time. I'm a big fan of Poe and Lovecraft, am in perpetual love with Monkey Island and Quest for Glory (who isn't?), and throughout the years made up a lot of characters and situations in my mind that should prove useful if only as inspiration to come up with something new.
YET ANOTHER PREFACE: To make things easier and slightly more manageable, I divided my project in logical steps. This ridiculously long post is my attempt to cover one of these, and the thought occured to me that it might end up being useful to somebody else, i.e.: an updated/elaborated 'features' Q&A.
______________________________________________________________
Q1) By 'Standard Sierra' or 'Verb Coin' GUI, do you mean AGI/SCI and SCUMM GUIs are available out-of-the-box? If so, does AGS feature a command parser similar to SCI0 and early SCI1.0 games? Also, it is mentioned that a LucasArts-styled conversation system is available by default; is the same true for Sierra-styled conversations, with zoomed-in talking portraits and what-not?
Q2) AGS now is a WIN86x-based application, but its games & byproducts (I've seen platformers and simulators done with AGS which are nothing short of amazing) run on an engine that's been ported to Linux and OSX; how well and what features will not work with each ported engine? The WIN86x engine works on top of DirectX; Linux and OSX engines are running on software mode, then? Should we expect future support for a 64-bits architecture?
Q3) In the 'features' page it's mentioned a range of color palettes or no palette at all with support for 32-bits Alpha; out of curiosity, if I chose to emulate an enhanced graphics adapter (EGA) palette of 16 simultaneous colors out of 64, does AGS come with the appropriate 64 color spectre? If not, can I import a new palette?
Q4) Again in the 'features' page there's mention to proprietary file extensions such as the MP3 format and AVI. Shouldn't these be avoided? I don't mean to insult the Americans, but how come people haven't been sued for sharing or selling games that make use of these formats without paying royalties and such? Take this in good humour, please. Oh, the question itself is serious.
______________________________________________________________
Thank you for reading this! I'll be much obliged if you answer these questions.
Cheers.